← Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Countdown with Keith Olbermann
TRUMP DOCTRINE: DESTROY THE WHITE HOUSE, DESTROY AMERICA, GET DEMOCRATS KILLED - 10.23.25
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Keith Olbermann
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Let's go.
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Week 10 Bajan Robinson and the Falcons take on Daniel Jones and the Colts in Berlin.
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Keith Olbermann
Fireworks in the fourth quarter.
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Keith Olbermann
See Mint mobile.com Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. Today is the dawn of Trump's Destroy America literally. Well, destroy the White House literally and steal $230 million literally from the government and pretend he's going to give it to charity and give away 172 million more dollars for two private jets for Kristi Noem and give Ukraine and eventually Europe to Putin and make America a one party nation and get elected Democrats Killed and destroy America literally. Well, okay, describing this as Trump's new policy to destroy, steal, give away and get elected Democrats killed, literally. That's not entirely fair because it's not really new on the kill Democrats thing. He's been sending out these stochastic signals to the psychopaths and masochists and humanoids who support him since the day he launched his candidacy for democracy, dictator of the universe and undeniable supreme being in 2015. But now he has new allies like House Whip Tom Emmer, or as he could be known, accessory before the fact in the arrest of Trump pardoned January 6th traitor Christopher Moynihan for allegedly making a terroristic threat to eliminate House Minority Leader Akeem Jeffries. And now Trump also has his own mob of would be terrorists and killers and assassins out there who are personally beholden to him because he pardoned them when they tried to overthrow our form of government and kill congressmen and senators on January 6, 2021. You all remember that. All Americans were briefed about that and they remember that, except the stupid ones who we didn't tell. And one of them decided to kill Minority Leader Jeffries and went to do so eight days after Trump whore Emmer, the Republican House whip, referred to the, quote, terrorist wing of the Democratic Party and its, quote, hate America rally. And Frank, the guy they arrested for trying to kill Jeffries, his defense should be but Tom Emmer said he was a terrorist. So these Democrats can appease their radical pro terrorist wing. That is what they are. Tom Emmer on October 10th, Christopher Moynihan in text messages. By the way, Maga gotta stop textin' Christopher Moynihan in text messages revealed Tuesday, quote, akeem Jeffries makes a new speech in a few days in ny. I see. I cannot allow this terrorist to live, unquote. The speech was Monday. Moynihan was arrested Sunday. Speaker Mike Johnson, apparently the most uninformed man in America. If Trump has written it, threatened it, spouted it, or knocked it down with a bulldozer, Mike has heard nothing about it. Wait until he learns that Lindbergh has just landed in Paris for this attempted political assassination of his counterpart in the Democratic Party. Mike Johnson blames the Democratic Party getting.
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Back to the threat to Hakeem Jeffries.
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Keith Olbermann
This is one of a number of individuals pardon as a result of January 6th who have been rearrested on various charges. Did President Trump make a mistake by just offering up a blanket pardon for every single person that was convicted as a result? I don't know. Any of the details of this at all. This is the left, in almost every case that is advancing this and not the right. So let's not make it a partisan issue. You don't want me to go there. Elected officials participating in a rally that was paid for by Soros and sponsored by communists with signs and placards and mantras that were repeated that we should bring death to, you know, fascist politicians. What they mean is they call every Republican a fascist. Now they're calling for the death of elected officials. Yeah, George Soros paid for all the frog costumes and for all but January 6th terrorists to threaten Akeem Jeffries. And Mike Johnson says, I don't want to make this partisan. So let me just insist that the left is entirely at fault. Just the left. Go back to your porn app. Emmer went back to the terrorism well on Tuesday insisting, I guess, that invisible no Kings protesters committed invisible violence last Saturday. So, quote, democrats can appease their radical pro terrorist wings. And then yesterday, the worst, weakest bully character in this timeline, Tom Homan. Tom. I'll take it with me. Homan. Tom. I'll have it to go. Homan. Tom. My name literally spells Ho Man. Homan. He went back to this crap, too. They're not pulling back up. They continue to do it this weekend at the no Kings protest. I watched more of the rhetoric. They've lost their minds, and I'm telling you, the bloodshed's not if we don't address the rhetoric. Is there any way to get Tom Homan to shut the f up? Oh, right. $50,000 in a cava bag, by the way. What's wrong with his voice there? Did he really say protests? I was listening to the protests. For all of my jovial. Well, we're all gonna die. Anywho, bonhomie here. There is a second, possibly more malicious component to Trump's long hinted at, never spelled out. That's why they call it stochastic terr. NBC reports that Eric Swalwell, the California congressman, has gotten multiple threatening messages from. Well, I'm gonna guess that they were Trumpists. Just a stab in the dark there. And Swalwell has reported them to the Department of Justice, which has done nothing. They want to put some guy in jail for threatening the maga FOP and Erzatz. Russian propagandist Benny Johnson. Swalwell, sitting congressman, nothing. This segues into the one party nation thing. You know, about the Comey prosecution and Letitia James and the arrests of Brad Lander and Senator Alex Padilla and Representative Lamonica. McIver of New Jersey when they were assaulted by ICE ISIS agents. While the Comey and James cases appear to be collapsing because the prosecutor is not only an idiot, but nobody seems to be able to prove she was legally appointed, McIver, to her credit, has decided to try to hoist Trump on his own. Like Comey, she has filed to dismiss based on selective and vindictive prosecution. But she has added something, cited a little Supreme Court case called Trump v. United States, in which, as a result of which Congresswoman McIver is claiming legislative immunity, she was conducting official oversight duties in her role as a member of the House and arresting her and putting her on jail and on trial just starting the trial is another ice pick to the neck of democracy, because as a representative, she cannot accept pro bono legal aid. So whether or not there ever is a trial, she has to pay for a lawyer when this is ice's fault. Ice's. And then, of course, there's knocking down the White House and replacing it with Mar a Lago, parking lots only with umbrellas and a ballroom. Because when I think Trump, I think that guy is a dancer the analogies write themselves. One in particular. Years ago, I remember having a cordial, territorial conversation over imagery about Trump with another Trump resistance figure. I think this was 2017, maybe 2016. I said, you know, it's obvious Trump behaves like the character Anthony in the horrifying Twilight Zone episode It's a Good Life, where it appears that a little boy, stunningly portrayed by the actor William Mumi, can make things disappear and make it snow in summer and can kill people just with his mind. And he has apparently already destroyed everything in the world except for a block or two of his hometown. And the terrified adults who are left are just humoring him rather than taking the advice of one of them to kill him while he's distracted. And they don't kill him, and he turns the guy into a Jack in the box and his wife has to suppress her screams because otherwise she will be next. So two of us agreed. Hey, Anthony. That's Trump. And. And the ones around Anthony, those are the Republicans. And I forget how we decided to share the Anthony comp. But regardless, I truly doubt either of us were first to think of this. I imagine one of Trump's ex wives thought of this, and I note that Josh Marshall of TPM has now invoked Anthony and claimed Trump has shifted into new territory like Anthony. And I applaud the reference, and I love Josh, but I doubt only the newness. Still, Josh raises one really good Point that needs Anthony for explanation. We get why Trump does Putin's bidding, why he is Putin's whore. We get why Trump wants $230 million. And by the way, Congressman Raskin says Trump can do this in secret and only afterwards will we find out it has already happened. He can get the $230 million and not make any kind of announcement from the Department of Justice in a settlement on which he is both the settler and the settled. Nice. We get why he would do anything to win a Nobel Prize, although he seemed just as pleased the other day to get a small peacemaker award from the Richard Nixon foundation, an award you could describe as a small dick award. We get the grift, we get the graft. We get the humiliating of the underlings, the ballroom and knocking down the White House. Nobody gets that. Who the f wants a ballroom at the White House? Lots of presidents have made lots of structural improvements to the White House. Hell, it's been remodeled or cleaned up or hollowed out by everybody from John Adams to Harry Truman. But you upend the world, destroy what little goodness there is in the world in order to get yourself into the White House as president, to control the White House. And so the first thing you do is knock part of it down rather than remodel. On the off chance that if in 10 or 20 years it is still legal to say the word Trump out loud in this country, which I doubt, one of the few positives you could have said was, yeah, yeah, he nearly killed us all and he was mad as a hatter. Funny the way that all turned out, but he did a nice job fixing up the East Wing. Those are the Trump restorations. I can still say Trump without going to jail, right? No, knock it down. Just cause. Just cause. You can, because you're Anthony from the Twilight Zone and you can wish it into the cornfield. You can do it if you're Trump, because it gives you something to do. I will add, I have some personal experience with this. 18 years ago, Katie Tur and I bought into a Trump building here. We got an apartment. Well, I bought. She tore down curtains without checking to see if they were custom and motorized and cost $25,000 to replace. Anyway, Trump wrote me a fan letter not long after, in 2014, I think, just at the point his building began to fall apart. The elevators didn't run anymore and the heating broke down. And I'm no dummy. He's always been Anthony from the Twilight Zone. So I wrote him back after his fan letter to me, and I thanked him for his kind words. And I played him. I know you don't own the building, sir, but as the son of an architect, I understand the pride of the builder. Anthony Donald. I know you take it personally because it has your name on it and the building staff is doing great, but I think your builders from 25 years ago may have taken advantage of your kind nature and, and, and, and the phone rang two or three days later, and it was one of his chief flunkies. And he said Trump had gotten my letter and really appreciated it and was delighted I lived there. And he coming over to see the problems firsthand. And sure enough, there he was in the lobby waiting for me. And he couldn't have greased me more if I had been a Maserati with squeaky axles. And he promised that the heat would be improved and the elevators would run on time. And he strode off. And a week later, they began construction on a new revolving door on the south side of the lobby and the complete remodeling of the gym, because that's what he saw last on his way out. And frankly, why would he listen to anybody but about building stuff when he could listen to those voices inside his head that he always listens to? And that's why, Josh, he's building a ballroom and knocking down the East Wing. Because to a psychopath like Trump, the act of building is the same as the act of destructing and destruction. It isn't, Trump built this or Trump destroyed that. Those are the same to him. The only thing he can process is I Trump. I Trump. Trump did this. Boom, boom, boom. Bang, bang, bang, fall, fall, fall. So he knocks down the East Wing and knocks down democracy and tries to get Democrats killed by somebody else, of course. Wish it into the cornfield. Everybody wish it into the cornfield. Then there are the baseline stupid people. In his thrall, in Anthony's thrall here. And I want to thank one of the stupidest, Jamie Comer. Bless you. Bless you for bringing Trumpstein back to the front of the picture. Holy cow. Just when you think you've dug down far enough to actually find how low Comer's intelligence is and in the process also reach the earth's creamy nougat center. Turns out you still have deeper to go. He's dumber than you thought. Way in the Trump dictatorship. Can't release the Epstein files, he says, because you've heard this. Because we can't release the Epstein files because. Because they would clear Trump. The evidence we've gathered does not implicate President Trump in any way. Public reporting, survivor testimony and official documents show that Bill Clinton had far closer ties to Epstein. So Comer says they implicate Bill Clinton and they clear Trump. So whatever you do, don't release them and clear Trump and send Clinton to the big House. What Republican would want those things to happen? My God, that would be terrible for the Republicans if it cleared Trump and, and sent Bill Clinton to the, to the, to the, to the big house. Are the magas buying this? The one who literally cheers AI images of Trump shitting on him from a plane. Is he buying this? Are he and the others, are they even buying this? Can't release the Epstein files cause they clear Trump and implicate Bill Clinton. Thank you Jamie Comer. Meantime, can we stop with the Democratic self flagellation? Gallup is out with its new political party identification polling and guess which party is in front by seven points. No, it's not Jamie Comer's party, it's The R. Democrats. Surprise. 48% of Americans identify as Democrats, 41% as Republicans. That margin 7 points is larger than the advantage the Democrats had in the third quarter of 2017, a year before democracy took back the the great pollster Elliot Morris of Strength in numbers notes 7 points is almost as big as the Dems had during Obama's re election campaign. He also notes that if you are still panicking over the hard numbers about increased actual registrations as Republicans or Democrats, stop doing that. Most of the data was old and this is an off year. There are almost no elections, thus almost new. No new registrations, almost no meaning to those registrations that do happen. Which is a reminder that the next time somebody tells you the Democratic brand is fatally wounded and moderate this and Republican permanent majority that remind them that poor opinions of the Democratic Party as an entity is not an indicator that people have stopped being Democrats. It is however an indicator that Democrats are pissed at how poorly the party is run and how tepidly it is fighting back against Trump's latest coup. How it seems to somehow always snap match defeat from the jaws of victory. Most of the people unhappy with the Democrats are the Democrats. Which takes us lastly to Maine and Graham Platner. Hello Mr. Platner. Graham Platner. You out. Get out. Get the f out. The populist candidate for the Democratic nomination for the Senate to run against Susan Collins in Maine. And he said stupid things on Reddit years ago. And then he also revealed Monday night he's had a, you know, a Nazi death head skull tattoo on his chest for like 18 years. And he didn't know. He didn't know now he knew he had a tattoo. He didn't know it was a Nazi death's head tattoo. It would have been better if he didn't know he had a tattoo because that would make him just an eccentric with a really high pain threshold. No, no, he's had a. He's had a Nazi death's head skull tattoo on his chest since 2007 and he ran for Senate and then somebody told him it was a Nazi tattoo. So he did what anybody would do, that he released a topless video of himself drunk, dancing at a wedding, showing the tattoo on a podcast. Didn't occur to him to call a news conference at a tattoo parlor and answer questions about it and how he could have been so stupid while he was getting the tattoo covered over or turned into a bunny rabbit or just removed like you would if you suddenly found out your cool tattoo from when you were in the army or something was actually a Nazi tattoo like you would if you weren't a Nazi. Platner said later he was already planning to have it removed in the near future, later. And then he claimed late yesterday he's now had it removed or covered over or something. Fingers crossed he hasn't had it covered over with like a picture of Hitler or Trump. And Bernie Sanders is still endorsing Platner and other people are still supporting Platner. And I supported him on this podcast last week, especially since the Shumerian candidate for the Senate bid is 79 year old, term limited. Maine Governor Janet Mills, an excellent Democrat who would instantly make Susan Collins look like a kid because Susan Collins is only 72. And, and, and okay, so what? That's not the point right now. The point is this isn't maga. This isn't Paul in Gracia admitting to being a bit of a Nazi. And if you criticize him, he sends his mommy to your office to try to threaten you over insults to her 30 year old son. No, no, this isn't the loony party. We have to remain nothing worse than the slightly silly party. Maybe Mills ultimately is the Democratic nominee. Maybe it's somebody else. God knows there must be a populist Democrat in Maine who has not had a Nazi tattoo or at least has had the minimum intelligence required, like an IQ of Feig 14 to immediately get the tattoo removed with the media present and apologizing that it was been there in the first place and he screwed up. And look at him showing his pain tolerance by Getting it removed with all the cameras rolling, he didn't have the common sense to get the tattoo removed first or in public or. For God's sakes, be creative. Think big. Be big, my friend. Do it at a fundraiser for people who are too destitute to get their Nazi tattoos removed. I don't care. Do it as a charity event. Listen, years ago, the infamous ex girlfriend and I got dogs and rings and cohabitation and more or less matching tattoos. And since we broke up, every once in a while, every couple of years, I think about getting my tattoo burned off or changed. And all my tattoo is, is an olive branch. Just doesn't feel right. She wanted to get a KO on the back of her neck and I said, I love you. It's a wonderful gesture. Just get the O. Not only is that a sufficient gesture for me, I'll know what it means. But look, what if we actually. We don't get married? Then. Then you have just an O. That could just stand for your name, or you could just make up a story. It doesn't have my initials on your neck. And you never have to, I don't know, get it burned off. I'd had real insight. I would have said, you never have to explain it to RFK junior. Graham Platner's tattoo, or X tattoo, is disqualifying. But if somehow you don't think so, Bernie, then the fact that he didn't do anything about it is even more disqualifying because that is about his judgment. And the point about Graham Platner's judgment is he clearly doesn't have any judgment. This is SportsCenter. Wait, check that. Not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Olbermann. I have a sports note. I just have to share this. It's a baseball history geek note. The San Francisco Giants have hired the University of Tennessee's baseball coach, Tony Vitello, as their new manager. I am somebody who thinks that 98 out of 100 current major league baseball players have unprecedented skills. They can throw and hit and field better than anybody who ever came before them. But only 2 out of the same 100 can actually play baseball without written instructions. As such, I think hiring a college coach who is used to teaching fundamentals might be a good thing. But I do want to correct a historical mistake that is becoming the headline about the hiring of Tony Vitello from Tennessee to go directly from college to manage a major league ball club. He would not be the first college coach hired directly to manage a major league team, even though he had no previous pro experience. There have been a couple of guys who've been college coaches and then became managers. Branch Rickey was at the University of Michigan. Hugo Bezdeck went from Oregon to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1917. But Hugo Bezdeck had managed in the minors before he went to Oregon. But this Vitello route, one day you're a college coach who's never been a pro manager or coach, next day you're a pro manager. That has happened before. Admittedly, it has not happened since 19 ought 7. And even more admittedly, it didn't go real well. But when Cy Young gave up as player manager of the Boston Red Sox after six games in 1907, when he said, I'm going from Cy Young to Cyonara, the Red Sox hired the Illinois baseball coach. And he was a famous one named George Huff as their manager. Get here to Boston as quickly as you can. Get a high speed train. George Huff had played a little in the low baseball minors in the 19th century, but he had no managerial or coaching experience in the pros. And it did not go well. He quit after eight games. He rushed back to the University of Illinois and he stayed there. And I'm not wishing the Giants any problems or anything bad, but 1907 was about as bad a year for managers on a baseball team as you could ever think of. The original Red Sox manager in 1907, Chick Stahl, ended his life in spring training. Something about a woman, not his wife. We're still not sure what happened. Then they said, okay, Cy Young a Hall of Fame, even though we don't have a Hall of Fame yet. An immortal. The best pitcher ever. You'll be the player manager. Six games. And he went, I'm done. Then the Illinois experiment. George Huff. Hope you bought a round ticket. Then they pointed at the first baseman. What's your name? Unglob. You're the new manager. That didn't work either. So the Red Sox then bought a catcher named Deacon Jim McGuire, who was kind of a player coach with the Yankees. They bought him on waivers. They made him the manager. Where'd you get this guy? We bought him on waivers. The Yankees didn't want him anymore as the eighth string catcher. He's our new manager. Sure, whatever. He's not dead, is he? No. Oh, he's great. Then five managers in three months, including the college guy who didn't make it to two weeks. As it would prove, the Red Sox would go through seven managers, including two hall of Famers in three seasons. So Tony Vitello who by the way, took a pay cut to go from the University of Tennessee to manage for the San Francisco Giants. Just going to say this, I mean it sincerely, Bon Chance. Also of interest here. Remember the Washington Post writer who reassured us that whether Trump or Hillary won in 2016, everything will be fine? She's back with even more stupid. Speaking of even more stupid, Andrew Cuomo apparently thinks the New York Mets play football. That's next. This is Countdown.
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Keith Olbermann
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The NFL International games continue on NFL Network and here our stars come out in the morning. Week 10 Bajan Robinson and the Falcons take on Daniel Jones and the Colts in Berlin.
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Keith Olbermann
Fireworks in the fourth quarter.
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- [34:12]
Keith Olbermann
This is COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann. Olbermann. This is COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann. There's a reason I had both John and Larry introduce this segment. I'll explain it at the end of the program. But still ahead on this all new episode of countdown, Howard Stern talked me out of going to Boston University. You heard me. He still doubts this happened, but every passing year I am more and more convinced no, it happened. That was him. 51 years ago, Howard Stern talked me out of going to Boston University when they were going to pay for the whole thing. It had to have been him. Maybe it was 51 years ago today. Certainly we are within a couple of weeks of the exact anniversary. My life changed because I met Howard Stern when I was 15 and he was 20 and he was complaining about. Well, he was complaining it had to have been him. I'll lay the evidence out for you. You make the call. Next in things I promised not to tell first. Believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miscreants morons and dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute today's other worst persons in the world. And by the way, I'm very grateful to Howard. Nothing against bu just worked out okay at the bronze. Worse. Abc, Disney and Bob Iger. Yes, when push came to shove about Jimmy Kimmel, they did the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. Anybody remember that when Trump claimed he'd gotten Jimmy Kimmel fired and then the next thing you know, Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air and he didn't, didn't really apologize and he didn't make a donation. And he never said anything about. What was that guy's name? Kirk? He never said anything bad about him. Anyway, remember that? Remember the big L they hung around Trump's neck and the entire right wing. Anybody remember that? No. Well, it was not done for the best of reasons. This is why it was done. It was done for the most effective of reasons and the most important of reasons for us going forward. This is from Oliver Darcy's Invaluable Status newsletter. We're getting our first look at the scale of the fallout Disney felt after yanking Jimmy Kimmel off the air when Iger and Dana Walden blinked under pressure from Brendan Carr. Remember him? And MAGA Media. It sparked a significant subscriber revolt. In other words, when they took Kimmel off the air as his new show was about to be recorded, the research firm antenna reports 3 million people immediately canceled their Disney plus subscription and 4,100,000 cut Hulu throughout the month of September, far exceeding the previous three month averages. That meant the churn for Disney plus that's a TV streaming term for people leaving people coming in soared to 8% for Disney Plus 10% for Hulu. The standard is the churn of Netflix, which is 2%. Now, the good news in this is, as often happens, when people do things for the wrong reasons, we can use them against them. Again, liberal and moderate boycotts of those who cave to Trump work. Work well, work efficiently. We should do them daily. Attention Columbia University. Attention Penn. The right call at Penn was not merely to back away from any deals they were about to make with Trump, but to revoke his degree, or at least claim it's under investigation for irregularities. You could turn Donald Trump's life into nothing but him attacking Pennsylvania over his degree. He would forget everything else going on in the world if you said to him Penn might be withdrawing his degree, which is probably worth investigating anyway. The gist of this is standing up to Trump is now popular. Attention Democrats. Speaking of which, the runner up Andrew Cuomo, New York City mayor candidate, sort of I don't know now why I've been complaining about Andrew Cuomo when he has been providing this much free entertainment. In fact, I'm beginning to think it would be a bad idea if he dropped out now and endorsed Zoran Mamdani. I don't know what I've been complaining about. This is a self destruction, self defenestration, self humiliation tour and Andrew Cuomo makes it better every day. Politico New York's Jeff Cotland attended an otherwise sparsely attended interview on stage, apparently at a church of Cuomo the other day. Cuomo was asked, for reasons I have no idea about, his favorite sports comeback because he needs a big comeback now, Mr. Cotland wrote, and he answered the 1969 Mets were the greatest comeback of all time. Cuomo says he's probably right about that. He adds, it was the impossible, impossible comeback. We're going to be fine. We just need a field goal. There's a true New Yorker, There's a man who remembers those 1969 Mets when they won the super bowl on a field goal. And I guess that means the New York jets and Joe Namath played hockey and they won the the Stanley The. No, the SE Cup. Or maybe that was the New York Knights. The 1969 Mets were the greatest comeback of all time. It was the impossible, impossible comeback. We're going to be fine. We just need a field goal. Oh, thank you, Andrew Cuomo. It's like, I don't have to write this. It just happens. And then they hand it to me. And that's two or three minutes of my life I don't have to devote to writing. But the winner. Speaking of the everlasting gift, the overflowing toilet of stupidity, the worst the Washington Post and Kathleen Parker. They published this this week. Sunday, in fact. The headline was. Is this the President we've been waiting For? Trump's Miraculous Mideast Peace Deal is a Moment of Triumph. That's the Washington Post. You remember the Washington Post. This is the new Washington Post. Is this the President we've been waiting for? Trump's Miraculous Mideast Peace Deal is a Moment of triumph By Kathleen Parker. Name sound familiar? Every now and then, Kathleen Parker writes, Trump surprises us by acting statesmanlike, usually just before he doesn't. Well, I can't think of an example of this. This was a case in point. She writes, as the president and Middle Eastern leaders gathered in Egypt to sign the Trump peace plan to end the war in Gaza. By now many have seen replays of the joyous reunions of hostages and families. And of course the whole thing fell apart within hours. And Trump doesn't care, cuz he just wants the Nobel Prize. He just wants the headlines. He doesn't care what happens thereafter. There's a Trump building across town here in New York that I used to live in. And unlike the 25th anniversary to the day that the place opened, all the warranties ran out and the elevators stopped working and the heat stopped working and stuff started to fall off the walls because he doesn't have a long term plan for anything. He just wants the now. He doesn't understand the future. He doesn't know that it exists. Kathleen Parker fell for it. Now, does her name sound familiar to you? It is two years now since she attacked Senator John Fetterman over. Over his policies? No. Over his increasing right wing toadying? No. Over the fact that he looks like the kanimate from the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man. No. Over his hoodie. Kathleen Parker wrote in September 2023, as little as I have loved Republicans the past few years, coinciding with the rise of our own little autocrat, at least Donald Trump knows how to dress. I can't imagine that even he would demean his officer, his country, by dressing down. Wears a red tie down to his ankles. Wears bronzer, unevenly applied, Dyes his hair with a mild coffee bean mix. Dresses like a cadaver, frankly. And of course he would never demean his office with anything in terms of style or appearance. Ballrooms, gold everywhere. One day he's going to come out and he's going to be like one of those Egyptian pharaohs actually painted in gold. Kathleen Parker attacked Fetterman for his hoodie and defended Trump defended the Trump peace plan, the 20 part 20 hour peace settlement to the Middle East. Kathleen Parker was also the CO anchor of CNN's 8pm newscast with Elliot Spitzer. That was up against, let's see, 2010, I think. What was the, was the MSNBC show called those Days? Was that Up, up, down with Keith, Keith, Keith Somebody? Eventually they fired her and just let Elliot Spitzer go on for a while. But most famously, if the name Kathleen Parker rings a bell, it's because of November 4, 2016. It was her column that was headlined Calm down, We'll be fine no matter who wins. After 18 months of rabble rousing and anger management, not in a good way, we've created a sort of Potemkin nightmare of partisan division and revolutionary strife. Never before has this country been so divided, goes the usual chorus of pundits and commentators. Except, that is, for every other election year since voting began. Our founding fathers, for all their cleverness, were hardly soft spoken. The Civil War needs no editorial comment. The 1960s weren't exactly a paddleboat cruise down the Mississippi. In other words, our politics have always been thus, though with one significant Calm down, we'll be fine no matter who wins. That Kathleen Parker the Washington Post has self destructed. Almost all of its innovative and thoughtful reporters, columnists and editors have been forced out. It is editorially controlled by a couple of Brits. The British are universally recognized as the worst and least principled journalists this side of Moscow. The Post hired an ombudsman who is in fact a political censor who is there to make sure anything in the paper will please Trump and not cause Jeff Bezos to have to get off. Lauren Sanchez, its owner, has either gone fully fascist or been blackmailed into acting fully fascist. And yet somehow, somehow Kathleen Parker is still there writing absolutely ludicrous, ridiculous shit like Calm down, we'll be fine no matter who wins. And now asking, is this the President we've been waiting for? Trump's miraculous Mideast peace deal is a moment of triumph. Well, you got the moment part right, didn't you? Kathleen? I'm hoping only that perhaps it will prove someday that Kathleen Parker buys space in the Washington Post pays them to print her dribble. Kathleen Quick answers to your questions, Ms. Parker. No, he's not the president we've been waiting for. And no, the Mideast is not a moment of triumph. And no, you should not be employed by any news outlet bigger than the penny stock saver. Today's other worst person in the world.
- [47:53]
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- [48:53]
Keith Olbermann
Yo, do you know Ball? We'll come through with a free $10 from Better Picks. Download the Better app, Pick more or less on your favorite player stats, watch the games and win some cash. Match. It's that simple. Must be 21 or older in a jurisdiction where Better Picks operates. Terms and conditions apply. Better Picks Sports just got better.
- [49:09]
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The NFL International games continue on NFL Network. And here our stars come out in the morning. Week 10 Bajan Robinson and the Falcons Touchdown Atlanta take on Daniel Jones and the Colts in Berlin.
- [49:21]
Keith Olbermann
Fireworks in the fourth quarter.
- [49:23]
NFL Network Announcer
Then in week 11, Jaden Daniels and the Commanders touchdown walking down face Tua and the Dolphins in Madrid.
- [49:30]
Keith Olbermann
Snooze off.
- [49:31]
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Game on. It's Sunday Morning Football continues November 9th at 9:30 Eastern only on NFL Network.
- [49:39]
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Keith Olbermann
We're public.
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- [50:01]
Keith Olbermann
Finally, to the number one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell the date on this one, a Tuesday of this week in 1974 is a guess, and the other principal figure in the story denies it was him. I usually hate such inexactitude, but I think the story is worth it, because the guy who denies it was him was Howard Stern. And it was him. I was 15 years old and just starting my college visits. My dad and I flew the very inexpensive Eastern shuttle to Boston and Commonwealth Avenue and the Boston University School of Public Communications, which had surprised us by not only offering me early admission when I had not requested it, but which upon arrival knocked us over by saying they wanted to offer me a merit scholarship, a free ride, all expenses paid. To be fair, I was the editor of the high school newspaper and editor of the yearbook, sports director of the radio station. I'd been in the drama group. I had researched and had published a baseball reference book earlier that year, and I was the associate editor of the first guide to sports memorabilia, and I had an internship lined up in the public relations department of the Boston Celtics. So the admission was not much of a surprise. The merit scholarship Let me tell you, the merit scholarship appealed fantastically to my father. My dad had already been socked for five years of private school because I was too bored to do well in public school, and now he was facing college money. This was new territory in Olbermann land. Nobody that we knew of on either side of my family had graduated from a four year college since one of my great grandfathers got a degree in wrought iron design round about 1885, and my dad had been offered a scholarship at a top architecture college and could not afford to take it. They were so poor he had to go to work right out of high school or his brother had no chance of finishing high school. Free college and a good one in the field his son wanted to go into. Dad liked this very much. The tour of what was then called the School of Public Communications went well. It was early fall, and there are a few places in the Northeast that do not look their best in early fall. We were in the middle of Boston, but there were trees. It was far from home, but it was down the block from Fenway Park, I think. The admissions director took us into the main studio of the Boston University AM station and introduced us to the disc jockey or pointed at him or something. And then the admissions director left. Must have, because what followed in the studio was not what that guy wanted me to hear. The disc jockey was a gaunt kind of Greasy looking kid with hair down to the floor and the attitude of an inquisitor working on too little sleep. He claimed to be a junior. To me, he looked to be about 30 years old. We were not introduced by name, or if we were, I had forgotten his by the time he finished saying it. Where are you from, kid? Westchester, I told him. Oh, yeah? I'm from Long Island. You got a problem with that? I said no. I had relatives on Long Island. Good answer. So you're applying here? I told him about the merit scholarship. Ah, la dee da. Some kind of phenom. I explained about the Celtics internship. Listen, kid, you sound like you know what you're doing, so don't make the same mistake I did the first two years. You don't get to take any radio or TV classes, just general studies. I suddenly remembered having read that. I asked him, what was the point of just repeating high school for two more years? Exactly. Okay, you get it. And what's worse, the grad students, they control the real radio station. It's like organized crime here. See this radio station? This crap shack? You can only hear this in the dorms. And it took me three years just to get two shows a week here. Tuesdays and Thursdays, middays. Nobody's in the dorms middays. Total waste of my time and my exceptional talent. And so far, the classes are crap. So maybe what you do is keep the internship but ditch the scholarship. I think it was at this point that my father said we had to get to the airport. He did not want me hearing more about ditching the scholarship. My college admissions strategy had been this. Maybe just go to the best school and let the radio and TV stuff come to me. But maybe go to a school that was really good in radio and TV and let the education just come to me. Then there was this Celtics internship, confusing things even further. And now the offer of the free ride from Bull. So my radio, TV schools were BU with Ithaca College as the safety. And my good schools were, forgive me, Harvard and Cornell as my safety, which is kind of unfair because my graduating class in high school had, like 70 kids in it, and four of us were applying to Harvard, and two of them had 4.0 grade averages dating back to the womb. And I didn't. And my only chance they were going to accept me would be because I would be only 16. BU was obviously a yes if they were going to pay for it. Ithaca was a yes. But I got a tour of the dorms and the elevators were full of trash. This is not a Euphemism. This is not a value judgment. The elevators had ankle high garbage in them. Cornell had a communications program, but I couldn't find out much about it. And I couldn't find out much about the radio station except that it was not dominated by grad students. Plus, Cornell had accepted me and as I expected, Harvard had not. And not that this still bothers me, but I remember that the letter was dated April 9, 1975, and it was waiting for me in the mail when I got back from the Yankees home opener on the afternoon of Saturday, April 12. Not that it still bothers me. Frickin Harvard. So I had like a week to choose between Cornell and a scholarship to bu. And then somewhere I read a story about how they had found a kid dead in the hallway of that big freshman dorm we'd seen in Boston. And I told my dad I would never be comfortable there. And of course that was just crap. I kept flashing back to what the kid on the carrier current BU radio station with the stringy hair down to the floor told me. And I kept thinking I'm not going to get any radio experience until late 1977. I just couldn't do it. And so I went to Cornell and dad started writing checks. And before I get to the punchline of this one I have to mention sophomore year, my dad drives me and my stuff up to Cornell and he gets turned around looking for my dorm and I say yeah, the good part is where we are. If you take the next left, we'll be at the Cornell Architecture School. And whereupon he cuts me off and says yeah, I know, it's Rand hall, next left, second building on the right. I said how do you know that? He says, remember I told you I was offered an architecture scholarship but I couldn't take it because we didn't have any money and your Uncle Bill wouldn't have been able to finish high school school. And I said yeah. And he said yeah, the scholarship was to here. During all the time I wrestled with which colleges to apply to, let alone which one to go to, my dad never told me that. Probably the first time I had respect for him as one sort of adult to another, and I still do anyway, 15 years later, or whenever it was, I'm doing sports in Los Angeles and late on a Saturday night this syndicated version of some New York radio shock jock show comes on the tv and I look and it's the don't make my mistake kid kid from Boston University in 1974. His name turns out to be Howard Stern and He looks exactly the same. Years pass, and for some reason, when Howard Stern leaves AM radio to put his show on satellite, the first day of the satellite show, he invites people from TV networks and newspapers to cover the big switch. And from NBC, he asks for me. So I get up and I go and I get a moment with him and I do a shtick for my MSNBC show. And then I say, listen, we've met. And he says, nah. And I tell him, and he says, I don't remember meeting you. And I say, of course not. I was 15 and we were not really introduced. And I mean, I had no idea it was you until I saw you on tv. And he says, it can't be. And I say, when you were a junior at bu, didn't you do only Tuesday and Thursday middays on the carrier current station? And weren't you already bitter about it and bitter about managing? And he says, yeah, but I don't remember meeting you. And so this was January 2006, and every time our paths have crossed since, we basically have repeated this conversation live or by text or whatever. And he insists, yeah, but I don't remember meeting you. And I have to explain that we didn't meet by name and I was much shorter then. And he says something like, how would that work? And sooner or later I just give up. But it was him. I met Howard Stern in 1974 when he was 20 years old and I was 15, and he personally talked me out of going to Boston University. Thank you, Howard. And nicely, as things worked out with Cornell and the best radio training ground in the country that Cornell contained and contains. Yes, I'm still bitter about Harvard. It had to have been him. As I said to him, who else could it have been? I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. Most of our Countdown music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chenale, our musical directors of Countdown. And it was produced by TKO Brothers. Mr. Ray on the guitars, bass and drum, drums, Mr. Chennail handling orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Foust. The olderman theme from ESPN2, written by Mitch Warren Davis appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. That's the sports music. Other music arranged and performed by the group no horns allowed. It occurs to me I have not asked Howard about this in at least 15 years. It's time for me to go back and see if his memory has a improved. My announcer today was, as you may have noticed, a duet my friends John Dean and Larry David. And they're together here in this episode on this date because they'll be happy to know Dodgers in five. Everything else was, as always, my fault. And so that is Countdown for today, day 277 of America held hostage again, just 1,186 days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained turn. Unless he kills us all first or he is removed sooner by Maga and Epstein or that pavement patch on his hand or another stuck escalator or the psychopathy test or Tylenol or his flying jet made out of poop. Or who knows? The next scheduled countdown is Monday. Till then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck back. Countdown with Keith Olbermann is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [62:07]
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- [62:23]
NFL Network Announcer
The NFL International games continue on NFL Network. And here our stars come out in the morning. Week 10, Bajan Robinson and the Falcons touchdown Atlanta take on Daniel Jones and the Colts in Berlin.
- [62:35]
Keith Olbermann
Fireworks in the fourth quarter.
- [62:37]
NFL Network Announcer
Then in week 11, Jaden Daniels and the Commanders touchdown once again. Face Tua and the Dolphins in Madrid snooze off. Game on it's Sunday morning football continues November 9th at 9:30 Eastern only on NFL Network.
- [62:52]
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- [63:23]
Keith Olbermann
Hello, America's sweetheart. Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist from smartless media, Campside media and big money players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist. Kind of like Robin Hood, except for the part where he steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I'm not that generous. It's a damn near inspiring true story for anyone out there who's ever shot for the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing. They stole $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape. So we're sitting like, oh, God, what do we do? What do we do? That was dumb. People. Do not follow my example. Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.